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Boss   Listen
noun
Boss  n.  (pl. bosses)  
1.
Any protuberant part; a round, swelling part or body; a knoblike process; as, a boss of wood.
2.
A protuberant ornament on any work, either of different material from that of the work or of the same, as upon a buckler or bridle; a stud; a knob; the central projection of a shield. See Umbilicus.
3.
(Arch.) A projecting ornament placed at the intersection of the ribs of ceilings, whether vaulted or flat, and in other situations.
4.
A wooden vessel for the mortar used in tiling or masonry, hung by a hook from the laths, or from the rounds of a ladder.
5.
(Mech.)
(a)
The enlarged part of a shaft, on which a wheel is keyed, or at the end, where it is coupled to another.
(b)
A swage or die used for shaping metals.
6.
A head or reservoir of water. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Boss" Quotes from Famous Books



... can stick to the saddle, can Wollombi Jim, And when a buckjumper dispenses with him, The leather goes off with the rider. And, as to a team, over gully and hill He can travel with twelve on the breadth of a quill And boss the ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall

... Missouri, sometimes in the bright fall weather, sometimes in the Arctic bitterness of the early Northern winter. He was the most loyal and simple-hearted of men, and he had come to join his old "boss" and comrade in the bigger hunting which we were to carry ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt

... head doubtfully. "I dunno. 'Tis a quare thing for the Seer. Av it was me, or you, now—but the Seer! It's danged quare! But tell me, fwhat's this man, yer boss? 'Tis a good healthy pull he must have to be separatin' us from thim ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright

... I intended. What I had meant, of course, was, that I should boss the job, and that Harris and George should potter about under my directions, I pushing them aside every now and then with, "Oh, you - !" "Here, let me do it." "There you are, simple enough!" - really teaching them, as you might say. Their taking it in the way they did irritated me. ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome

... convinced that such a policy is a mistake. In the Cape natives and colored men, if possessed of the necessary property and able to write their names, are allowed to vote. The name writing is said to be a farce, the native drawing a picture of his name under guidance of his political boss. Some 20,000 natives and colored people thus vote at the Cape, and neither the Progressives nor the Bond party dared to oppose the continuance of the franchise, lest the native vote should be thrown solid against them. As ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... surroundings often give grand names to their children—was the son of an intellectually gifted laborer, who, rising first to be boss of a gang, began to take portions of contracts, and arrived at last, through one lucky venture after another, at having his estimate accepted and the contract given him for a rather large affair. The result was that, through his minute knowledge of details, his faculty for getting ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald

... said, "I want you to know one of our new men, young Mr. Orde. You've worked for his father. This is Jim Tally, and he's one of the best rivermen, the best woodsman, the best boss of men old Michigan ever turned out. He walked logs ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... truck drivers asked a negro road mender what he thought of his job. He looked up with a pearly smile and a gleam of his eyes and replied: "Boss, I'se doin' mah best to make de ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill

... know he has a roving disposition, and I think he has a sort of fondness for Jackson—the boss ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne

... do?" asked Beth as the carriage came to a standstill, and she noted the waiting negroes. As January helped her out, he chuckled, and swelled visibly with pride. "Dey all work for us, Missy Beth. She's de boss," he added in a low tone pointing to the colored woman with the bandanna. "Dat's Maggie; yo'd bettah make ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine

... and go to work, instead of wearing his clothes buttoned up all day. It don't take much 'savvy' to run a handful of thirteen-dollar-a-month soldiers." Necia stirred a bit restlessly, and the trader continued: "It ain't man's work, it's—loafing. If he tries to boss us ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... top of that, I found out later the F.B.I. had checked up on me to find out if I was a liar or a screwball. They went around to my boss, people in my neighborhood—even the pilots in my outfit. My outfit's still razzing me. I wouldn't report another saucer if one ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe

... the boss of a shield; shimmering rosy-gray and crystalline. From the vital ovoids ran a pattern of sparkling threads, irised and brilliant as floss of molten jewels; converging with interfacings of spirals, of volutes and ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt

... Washington mechanic. There are some good ones, but they are absorbed by the large and experienced dealers in labor, and are beyond the knowledge or reach of ordinary mortals. You want a little job done at your house; you call on a "boss;" certainly—it shall be done instantly; a workman will be sent in a few minutes; two days afterward he comes and "looks at it;" the next day he returns with another man and they both look at it; another day passes, and an apprentice-boy, with a lame negro to wait on him, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various

... (the gossips say), "The Rise and Fall of Silas Latham" was unfavourably passed upon by the elevator-man; the office-boy unanimously rejected "The Boss"; "In the Bishop's Carriage" was contemptuously looked upon by the street-car conductor; "The Deliverance" was turned down by a clerk in the subscription department whose wife's mother had just begun a two-months' visit at his home; "The Queen's ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... outside had become a blizzard. Old Mother Westwind took to her heels and the Boss of the Arctic raged. It occurred to Bruce that it would be hard to bury Slim if the ground froze, and that reminded him that perhaps Slim had ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart

... of Bones," said de Vinne, as they left the restaurant. "He was an officer on the West Coast of Africa. His boss was a man named Sanders, who's left the Service and lives at Twickenham. From what I can hear, this chap Tibbetts worships the ground that Sanders walks on. Evidently Sanders was a big ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace

... turned also, but Mike saw their faces, and also knew that the lady was boss. So he seemed ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... use to worry. We'll stick around with them and sort of boss the job. I am glad you invited them to the ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston

... Nellie. "But all employers have it or pretend to have it. I fancy it comes through men, afraid of being victimised if they display independence, shifting the responsibility of their sticking up for rules upon the union and letting the boss think they don't approve of the rules but are afraid to break them, when they're really afraid to let him ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller

... without more ado, slipped the suffering young news-merchant a bill which his friends supposed was $2 to replace the lost funds. As they were taking off their coats in the hall, however, the little newsboy pushed his way in with: "Say, boss, did yer mean ter guv me de twenty?" Addicks nodded a good-natured assent, and his friends registered silently a white mark to his score, and felt that, after all, somewhere beneath the surface he was more of the right sort than they had given him credit ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... war.[1] When the world said that a man might and really ought now and then to beat his wife and rule her by force, the really conformable man did so, while his descendant, living in a time and country where woman is the domestic "boss," submits, humorously and otherwise, to a good-natured henpecking. And in the times where a woman had no vocation but that of housewife, the wife of larger ability merely became a discontented, futile woman; whereas in an age which opens up politics to her, the same type of person ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... ballast your next way bag, boss," said Charley, gravely, as it escaped his clutches once more in the dust of the road, "or you'll have to make a new contract with the company. We've lost ten minutes in five miles over that ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... yob, a yob,' he shouted, 'and no foolin'. I worked for de boss ten years and never ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... need for you to feel peaked—not any. It was darn good of you to let me in on these sacred no-admittance-'cept-on-business trenches, and I'm plumb glad I landed in the mix-up. It would probably raise trouble for you if your boss knew you'd slipped me in; and it sure would raise everlasting trouble for me at home if my name was flourishin' in the papers gettin' an A.B.C. or D.A.M.N. or whatever the fixin' is. And I'd sooner have this"—slapping the German helmet that dangled at his belt—"than your whole darn ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)

... the answer. "Lot of fakes. I sent in the alarm. A fire-eater was trying some new stunt and he set the place ablaze, so the boss yelled to me. Come now, youse all have to git back!" and he motioned to the crowd, which was constantly increasing, to ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum

... chicken as is sufficient. Item, he is to keep the church clean. Item, he has to pay to the keeper of the church one measure of barley, and eighteen groats for his clothes yearly, and every Martinmas he is to pay to the cantor sixty soldi, and he shall place a {64} . . . or boss {65} in the choir during Lent. Also he must do one O in Advent and take charge of all the ornaments of the altars and all the relics. Also on high days and when there is a procession he is to keep the paschal ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler

... looked like rough treatment—for a lovely girl, thus to be strapped to a brawny big fellow; but after a while, the girls thought it was great fun to be married and each one to have a man to caress, and fondle, and scold, and look for, and boss around; for each wife, inside of her own hut was quite able to rule her husband. Every one of these new wives was delighted to find a man who cared so much for her as to come after her, and risk his life to get her, and each one admired ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis

... one who would have been noticed in a crowd of workmen. I have no doubt the boss told them that he was a splendid workman. That he had had bad luck, that he lived on a new place, two or three miles back in the woods, that he had a large family to support and came clear out there every day to ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin

... he got disappointed about the way things went, he'd lay 'em out in win'rows; and ef he hadn't been a church-member he'd been a real fightin' character. I was always 'fraid to have him roused, for all he was so willin' and meechin' to home, and set round clever as anybody. My Susan Ellen used to boss him same's the kitten, when ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... the face, and he returned to his father not so thoroughly in the spirit of a specious gaiety. It did him good, though, to see the colonel's fingers close on the old pipe, with a motion of the thumb, indicating a resumed habit, caressing a smooth, warm boss. The colonel soberly but luxuriously lighted up, and they sat and puffed a while in silence. Jeffrey drew up a chair for his father's feet and ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown

... of Brigal So his good shield is nothing worth at all, Shatters the boss, was fashioned of crystal, One half of it downward to earth flies off; Right to the flesh has through his hauberk torn, On his good spear he has the carcass caught. And with one blow that pagan downward falls; The soul of him Satan away hath ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous

... time the aftermath of the earthquake and fire had supplied topics for conversation. For quite two years there had been an acutely painful interest in the Graft Prosecution, which, beginning with an attempt merely to bring to justice the political boss, his henchman the mayor, and his ignorant obedient board of supervisors, had unthinkably resolved itself into a declaration of war, with State's Prison as its goal, upon some of the most prominent capitalists in ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... be so mean as that darned skunk. It makes me mad whenever I look at this consumptive boss he's ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... was a poser for the old darkey; his pride was appealed to, his very character was at stake. After an awkward hesitation, the old darkey spoke up, a gleam of simulated recollection (and real gratification for his convenient memory) overspreading his countenance: "Lord, boss, I was dar. In cose I was. I was with Marse George at dat very time. In fac—I done druv dat ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson

... as fresh as they make it, and gives yer a doose of a peck, And DUNSING, the Boss at "The Crown," does yer proper. I came 'ere a wreck; But sulphur, sound sleep, and cool breezes, prime prog, and good company tells; So 'ere's bully for 'Arrygate, CHARLIE, in spite of rum baths and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, Sep. 24, 1892 • Various

... Now when the Boss of the Beldams found That without his leave they were ramping round, He called,—they could hear him twenty miles, From Chelsea beach to the Misery Isles; The deafest old granny knew his tone Without the trick of the telephone. "Come here, you witches! Come here!" says he,— "At your games of old, ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... world to military slavery, they began to take sides and feel there was good cause for fighting. Meanwhile almost exactly the same thing was happening in Germany, where England was being represented as a greedy and deceitful Power, trying to boss and crush all the other nations. Thus each nation did what was perhaps, from its own point of view, the most sensible thing to do—persuaded itself that it was fighting in a just and heroic cause, that it was a St. George against the Dragon, a ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter

... a lot of fresh young fellows, and they only laughed at me and said I was too suspicious," grumbled Jed Kessler. "But that is where I made a mistake. I should have gone right to the offices and reported to the head boss." ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield

... to qualify as a mining expert. You're not the only one who thinks Uncle Sam's the best boss there is. I'm going into the ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... flared suddenly, turning as if to go to her room. "You've not got any right to boss me around in ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... on the wrist and repeat the scout law nineteen times backward," Roy said. "Who's going to boss this meeting? ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... fellows to be put out for a snow-storm,—cutting and hauling and sawing, out in the sleet and wind. Bob Stokes froze his left foot that second week, and I was frost-bitten pretty badly myself. Cullen—he was the boss—he was well out of sorts, I tell you, before the sun came out, and cross enough to bite a tenpenny nail ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... who were most obdurate in those days are doing admirable work in these. The most serious effort I ever made was to convert my old friend and classmate, Thomas C. Platt, the main manager and, as he was called, the "boss'' of the Republican party in the State of New York, a man of great influence throughout the Union. He treated me civilly, but evidently considered me a "crank.'' He, like Mr. Thurlow Weed, was unable to understand how a party could be conducted without ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... the trick, boss. They caught me, and they didn't do a thing to me—not a thing! My head was near broke and they made me take a bite outer ther apple I was tryin' to feed ther horse. It'd killed me if they'd made me eat ther whole of the ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish

... far-away roaring as of Bulls fighting, but thought nothing of it till he rounded the point and saw on the flat below a lot of his cattle pawing the dust and bellowing as they always do when they smell the blood of one of their number. He soon saw that the great Bull, 'the boss of the bunch,' was covered with blood. His back and sides were torn as by a Mountain-lion, and his head was battered as by ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Seton-Thompson

... fellow, was the apprentice boy, Horatio. His employer said, "Horatio, did you ever see a snail?" "I—think—I—have," he drawled out. "You must have met him, then, for I am sure you never overtook one," said the "boss." Your creditor will meet you or overtake you and say, "Now, my young friend, you agreed to pay me; you have not done it, you must give me your note." You give the note on interest and it commences working against you; "it is a dead horse." The creditor goes to bed at night and wakes up ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... to-night on Cedar Hill," said the boss, about mid-afternoon. "Martha Vaughn has got the best pasture and the prettiest girl in this part o' the country. If you don't fall in love with that girl, you ought t' ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller

... he swung into the saddle and looked down at the friendly faces, most of them black faces, below, "Good-by," he said. "Wish me good luck, won't you?" and a willing chorus of "Good luck, boss," came flying after him as the horse's ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... be a real boss puddler, and so, when I was eighteen I went to Pittsburgh and got a furnace. But a new period of hard times was setting in, jobs were getting scarce as they had been in 1884. That was the year when we had no money in the house and I was chasing every loose nickel in ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis

... red as I hastened to the side of the cart and put down Mandy's arm. She stammered, unable to speak more connectedly than I myself. Mandy could not forget her anger, and insisted that she wanted to see the "boss." ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough

... Unless he deserts the girl, he won't be so hard to find as formerly. You see, it's like this. The boss says to me: 'Higg, here's a guy we want back. He's down in Patagonia somewhere.' So I go to Patagonia. I know South America and Canada like the lines in my hand. This is my first venture over here. The point is, I know all the tricks in finding ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath

... "That's all right, boss," one replied. "The old man drove hard, but he paid well and he was white. You can go ahead; ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss

... often an inveterate thief. He has fits of drinking, when he becomes mad as a Malay. He gambles, he overdresses himself, and he indulges in love-intrigues till he has exhausted his means, and then he makes 'boss' pay for all. With a terrible love of summonsing, and a thorough enjoyment of a law-court, he enters into the spirit of the thing like an attorney's clerk. He soon wearies of the less exciting life in the wilder settlements, where orgies ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron

... shared with a mine boss was of chilly stone walls and floor, large and square, with a rug, two beds, and the bare necessities. The mine mess, run by a Chinaman, furnished meals much like those of a 25-cent restaurant in Texas, at the rate ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck

... boroughs" from the fact that whether large or small there was no longer any sound political life existing in them. Many towns were so completely in the hands of the squire or some other local "political boss" that, on one occasion when a successful candidate for Parliament thanked the voters for what they had done, a man replied that he need not take the trouble to thank them; for, said he, "if the squire had zent his great dog we should have chosen him all ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... very big-feeling," said Ben, using a boy's word, "and likes to boss all the rest of the boys. He thinks he ...
— The Young Explorer • Horatio Alger

... Canadians one night—and the Canadians are fine boys. I was putting my foot on the platform, just about to begin, when a bright young Canadian touched me and said, "Say, boss, can you shoot quick?" ...
— Your Boys • Gipsy Smith

... the stuff we got on the range, so I pulled my freight and came East again. But while I was there I was a little king. I was just as good as the next man, and he was no better than me. And though the life was rough, and it was cold and lonely, there was something in being your own boss that made you stick it out there longer than anything else did. It was like this, Holcombe." Carroll half rose from his chair and marked what he said with his finger. "Every time I took a step and my gun bumped against my hip, I'd straighten up and feel good and ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... glinting, "mostly dago labor. Well, that doesn't need to worry us, does it? You stay here, Don, while I find the boss." ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple

... air of their respective chambers with screams of outrage. In every speech, "Stab in the back" found an honorable if monotonous place. Zhadanov, boss of the Soviet Union since the death of the sainted Stalin, answered gruffly, "War is no minuet. We do not wait for the capitalist pigs to bow politely before we rise to defend the heritage of Czar Ivan and our own dear, glorious, inspiring, venerated ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... she'll not be a harder boss than ol' Pete Fraser, my wife, he's onkle," declared Moise. "He'll make those men get up by two, three, in the morning an' track two, three hour before she'll ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough

... receptacle for the meat as it was dissected; showed them how to take out the tongue beneath the jaw, after slitting open the lower jaw. He besought them not to throw away the back fat, the hump, the boss ribs or the intestinal boudins; in short, gave them their essential buffalo-hunting lessons. Then he turned for camp, he himself having no relish for squaw's work, as he called it, and well assured the wagons ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough

... "All in order, Boss," he reported to Captain Somers, with the smile that only an employer's son-in-law can both manage ...
— Death Wish • Robert Sheckley

... explained, the usual System, and back of it the usual Boss: one Ryan, owner of the Ottoman saloon and the city of Hunston, who held the town in the hollow of his coarse hand, and was ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... too much to assert," said the Arab gravely. "This stone resembles that on the hanging to a hair; and yet it has a little inequality which I do not remember noticing on it. It is true I had never seen it out of the setting, and this little boss may have been turned towards the stuff, and yet, and yet.—Tell me, goldsmith, did the thief give you the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... put many wistful questions. Sometimes it was a rock contractor tanned the color of a Mexican saddle. Sometimes it was a new arrival in Stetson and riding-breeches and unstained leather leggings. Sometimes it was a coatless dump-boss blaspheming his toiling ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer

... stand lying like a brace of Sinbads—whilst Ajax, on the right, is spearing his proportion of the Dardans, and Sarpedon doing equal execution among the unfortunate Achivi on the left. Nor, until either warrior has exhausted his patriarchal reminiscences, do they heave up the boss and the bull-hide, or make play for a thrust at the midriff. Now, unless the genealogy of their opponents was a point of honour with the ancients—which it does not appear to have been—these colloquies seem a little out of place. In the middle ages, a knight ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... another, apparently in defiance of all rules of the strength of material; if you have endeavored to ascertain why a particular device is used rather than another more evident one; if you have thought and studied why a boss is thrown in here and there in designs to receive bolts or to lengthen a journal, and if you have in your mind, by repeated observation, a fair idea of how work is designed by other people, the so-called mechanical intuition ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various

... portion of the circle of the signs to indicate, during the revolutions, the proper length of the hours corresponding to their seasons. For in every one of the signs there are as many holes as the corresponding month has days, and a boss, which seems to be holding the representation of the sun on a dial, designates the spaces for the hours. This, as it is carried from hole to hole, completes the ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius

... believe that," she said as she eyed the frenzied disorder around her. Her boss wasn't much better than his laboratory, she decided as she watched him strike a match against the side of the box and apply the flame to the charred bowl of his pipe. His long dark face became half obscured behind a cloud of bluish smoke as he ...
— Pandemic • Jesse Franklin Bone

... lecture the next evening. And he was glad when he got out, and Henrietta was relieved, though she cried with vexation and disappointment when he was gone. As for Rob, he went home in great doubt whether it was worth while trying to be something. Of what use was it to seek to get to be a boss, a builder, or the owner of a quarry? ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston

... first-born of covetousness. But the love of power also plays a part in the debauchery of citizenship; and the central sin of using men as means to our ends is exhibited here on a stupendous scale. This is the vocation of the boss and the briber and the political machinist; and a deadlier way of destroying manhood it would be hard to find. It is not only the interest of other individuals, but the interest of the whole community that the corrupt politician ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden

... counties, a Larkin henchman rose and spoke floridly for twenty minutes on the virtues of John Frankfort, put up as the Larkin "draw-fire," the pretended candidate whose prearranged defeat was to be used on the stump as proof that Boss Larkin and his gang had been downed. At the call of Hancock County, another—a secret—Larkin henchman rose to eulogize "that stanch foe of corporate corruption and aggression, Hancock County's favorite son, ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips

... big magazine. Then—the thrill that comes once in a lifetime—I sold an article to Collier's. It required tremendous energy to keep up such a pace, but there was sweet comfort in the thought that, technically at least, I was now my own boss. Gradually, I broke away from assignment work until I was free to write what I liked and ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing

... up, Hogan. It won't do no good. You'd ought to have more respect for me, considerin' I was your boss once." ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... what you like! I'm not trying to please you. My, how stern you are! You'd better scold your own wife, not me; I'm not under your orders; you aren't my boss. I have a good husband who can boss me, not you. I'm not to blame because your wife wanders around highways and byways, and flirts with young gentlemen ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky

... "My boss!" said that gentleman, in his character of Patches the cowboy, as the Cross-Triangle foreman halted his horse on the brow of the hill, and sat looking down upon ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright

... Tom—never would, so long as Tom had anything to say about it—and set off toward the Devil's Tooth ranch. Cheyenne ducked his head under the tent flap when he heard the sound of hoof beats passing close, saw that it was his boss, noted the direction he was taking, and heaved a sigh of relief. While he labored with the knot in his handkerchief which must be tied exactly right before he would leave the tent, Cheyenne had been composing a reason for leaving camp. Now he would not need a reason, and he grinned while ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower

... who left for Portland by night steamer, Friday, was headed by a bulky-shouldered boss, who wore no coat and whose corduroy vest swung cheerfully open. A motley troupe were the cattlemen—Jews with small trunks, large imitation-leather valises and assorted bundles, a stolid prophet-bearded procession of weary men in tattered ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis

... wanted to come home, and Mr. Henley, my boss, insisted upon proving to me it would be the most foolish thing I could do. He was so much in the right, that I resented ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... bad as you are, if not worse. What they need is a good hickory switch and plenty of muscle behind it. If they were my boys, I'd let them know what's what. I'd put things in order in jig time. I'd show them whether they could run things as they liked. They'd learn mighty quick who was boss. I'd——" ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport

... retreating step by step, accompanied by little, slender, light-pillared, pointed structures, likewise striving upwards, and furnished with canopies to shelter the images of the saints, and how at last every rib, every boss, seems like a flower-head and row of leaves, or some other natural object transformed into stone. One may compare, if not the building itself, yet representations of the whole and of its parts, for the purpose of reviewing and giving life to what I have said. It may seem exaggerated to many; for ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... become like a treadmill. They do not get a broad view of the entire business. Sometimes that is the fault of the employer, but that does not excuse the young man. Those who command attention are the ones who are actually pushing the boss.... It pays to be ahead of your immediate job, and to do more than that for which you are paid. A mere clock watcher never gets anywhere. Forget the clock and become absorbed in your job. ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney

... You were boss. You would not listen to me when I begged you to reduce your steam. Take that!—take it to my wife and tell her it comes from me by the hand of my murderer! Take it—and take my curse with it to blister your heart a hundred years—and may you live ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... Fordie," the Senator rose, kicking the folds from the knees of his trousers, "if you boss the job, Fordie, I'll let you cross the ranch! You'll take a few of the herders up with you? And you'll not let the sheep spread over the fields? Better do it towards evening when it's cool for the climb! All right, we'll call that a bargain! Fordie's on the job to pass the sheep up the trail; and ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... to me that the pair of them, spineless and spunkless, were afraid of the men they were supposed to boss. And the men! Dore could never have conjured a more delectable hell's broth. For the first time I saw them all, and I could not blame the two bosuns for being afraid of them. They did not walk. They slouched and shambled, some even tottered, as ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London

... silently, deeply admiring them both. Then there were two empty chairs, for the Chisholms, the resident manager and superintendent and his sister, at the end of the table; and then Joe Vorse, the switchboard operator, and his little wife; and then Monk White, another shift boss; and lastly, at Mrs. Tolley's left, Paul Forster, newly come from New York to be Mr. ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris

... I'm in the know too, and these old jimjams are my friends.' Then he opens his mouth and points down it, and when the first man brings him food, he says, 'No;' and when the second man brings him food, he says 'no;' but when one of the old priests and the boss of the village brings him food, he says, 'Yes;' very haughty, and eats it slow. That was how he came to our first village without any trouble, just as though we had tumbled from the skies. But we tumbled from one of those damned rope-bridges, you see, and—you ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... tents with paraffin to season them against the weather. Finally the great forty-horse team lumbered up with its mighty load. The boss canvasman with half-a-hundred assistants began the construction of "the main top," or performing tent, ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness

... over to see the Deerings' parrot? There ain't another such bird in America. You go over there this morning and see that parrot. Don't loll about the house. Don't be lazy!" Whereupon, with less profanity, but as much of autocracy as was ever displayed by an Irish boss whipping into shape the lowliest of his Italian gang, Mr. McBride replaced his pipe elaborately, and walked off with the honors. Katrina, utterly astonished, stared after him, then ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various

... go to work without any health insurance at all—something the workers in no other advanced country in the world do. It means that every year more and more hard working people are told to pick a new doctor because their boss has had to pick a new plan. And countless others turndown better jobs because they know, if they take the better job, they'll lose ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... I am—settled at the ole Bar Y. And it'd take a twenty-mule team t'pull me offen it. Of a evenin', like this, the boss, he sits on the east porch, smokin'; the boys're strung along the side of the bunk-house t'rest and pass and laugh; and, out yonder, is the cottonwoods, same as ever, and the ditch, and the mesquite leveler'n a floor; and—up over it ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various

... truff, boss, we has about seben hundred blue-eyed an' light-haired chilluns in heah ebery day, and we has de same number ob dark ones, so it's mighty hard t' 'member ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in a Great City • Laura Lee Hope

... large barn-like room over a saloon," with furniture "of the canonical kind; dingy benches, spittoons, a dais at one end with a table and chair, and a stout pitcher for iced water, and on the walls pictures of General Grant, and of Levi P. Morton," Joe Murray was engaged in a conflict with "the boss" and wanted a candidate of his own for the Assembly. He picked out Roosevelt, because he thought that with him he would be most likely to win. Win they did; the nomination was snatched away from the boss's man, and election followed. The defeated boss good-humoredly turned in to help ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland

... performed it for them. After the closing time came, I and about ten or twelve men all occupied the same room; the old man continued to play, and the youth, stark naked, continued to dance and suggested we others should do so, and an erotic scene took place which was only closed to view by the 'boss' who was present putting ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... they weighed and measured him, finding him to weigh two hundred and fifty pounds, and measure nine foot eight inches from the tip of the nose to the tip of the tail, which the colonel (though a bear-hunter in the Rockys for many a year) acknowledges to be the "boss" of the mountains. ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various

... going to play 'thout I can be the boss of the niggers. It's Sarah Jane's chain and she's my mama's cook, and I'm going to be ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun

... ye, the end? Did I say "without friend?" Say rather, from marge to blue marge The whole sky grew his targe With the sun's self for visible boss, While an Arm ran across Which the earth heaved beneath like a breast! Where the wretch was safe prest! Do you see! Just my vengeance complete, deg.69 The man sprang to his feet, 70 Stood erect, caught at God's skirts, and prayed! —So, I ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning

... Jack and Cuffy; aren't they the boss dogs!" shouted the fearless little runaways, and now that the victory was won they nimbly sprang down from their high retreat and, apparently without the slightest fear, congratulated both their father and the Indian on the superiority of their ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young

... was asked, 'What is the color of your soul?' he returned his stereotyped 'Nothing to give out on that subject,' and then added, 'But it would be violating no confidence to tell you that Boss Coonahan's is black.'" ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer

... perfect skeletons. In one grave lay the bones of a great lady; buried with her was a beautiful wooden drinking-cup, its staves fastened by bronze bands of an intricate Runic pattern of coiled snakes. Another grave held the skeleton of a warrior giant, his sword lying across him and the boss of his shield upon his foot. Mr. Flower thinks he can add a name. Coulsdon is a corruption of Cuthredesdune, and perhaps Cuthred, an Anglo-Saxon prince, lies buried here with his family. Cuthred, son of Cwichelm, and grandson of Cynegils, the first Christian ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker

... one of the men as he bolted and locked the heavy door. "Come on, now," he added to his companion. "The boss will be wondering what ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield

... boss's two sons had got commissions? Joined the Sappers an' tried to raise a company out o' the works to join. Couldn't though. ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable

... it is not Spring until a person can put his foot on twelve of these flowers. In the cultivated red Daisies used for bordering our gardens, the yellow central boss of each compound flower has given place to strap-shaped florets like the outer rays, and without pollen, so that the entire flower consists of this purple inflorescence. But such aristocratic culture has made the blossom unproductive of seed. Like many a proud ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... when she and you shall sever (Though 'tis early yet to crow), Your departure may for ever Lay her proudest triumph low; Yes, while men (I'm much afraid) 'll Round her fingers still be twirled, If her hand can't rock a cradle It may cease to boss the world. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • Various

... crew could have given them. These gentry had fought bitterly because they had been attacked. Raft had frightened them. There is a form of bravery which one might liken to inverted terror. Rats shew it when they are cornered, and so do men. They had seen their boss killed with a blow and the destroyer hurling himself on them and, though they were peaceable men, they fought. These same peaceable men, be it understood, would, all the same, have murdered a human being for profit could they have done so ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... don't like to kill things," observed Scott briefly. "My sister is the primitive of this outfit. She's the slayer, the head hunter, the lady-boss of this kraal." ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... this book are older and more experienced now, and, even if they cannot handle the big logs themselves, they are perfectly competent to teach their daddies and uncles and their big brothers how to do it, so they may act as boss builders and architects and let the older men do the heavy work. But however you proceed to build this house, when it is finished you will have a typically native building, and at the same time different from all others, as quaint as ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard

... and didn't steal," said the boy, as he began to sharpen his knife on Uncle Ike's razor strop. "There is a rumor among the boys that you may be nominated for President, and a lot of us boys got together and took a vote, when we were in swimming, and you were elected unanimously. I am to be the boss who deals out the offices, and all the boys are going to have a soft snap. Before the thing goes any further the boys wanted me to see you, and have you promise that anything I ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck

... if he were but quit of the battle, and Sir Robin back on the land which he held. Nevertheless he put forth all his might and drew nigh, and fell on Sir Robin much hardly, and gave him a great stroke upon his shield so that he sheared it to the boss thereof. But Sir Robin laid a great stroke upon his helm, but he threw his shield betwixt and Sir Robin sheared it amidst, and the sword fell upon the neck of the horse, and sheared it amidst, and beat down straightway both horse and man. Then Sir Raoul leapt to his ...
— Old French Romances • William Morris

... so," said Fulkerson, disordering his hair. "Well, it's nuts for the colonel nowadays. He says if he was boss of this town he would seize the roads on behalf of the people, and man 'em with policemen, and run 'em till the managers had come to terms with the strikers; and he'd do that every time there ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... "He's boss of his district, they say. Runs a gambling-house of his own, I've heard. You can't prove it ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine

... on the side porch. The billiard room opens on to it. I'd been told by the corral boss earlier in the evening that he'd seen a man skulking around the house. There'd been a report like that once or twice before, and I set a watch. I put Ben Haggerty at the kitchen wing with a gun, and I took up a stand on the porch. Before I did that I told Judson, but I don't think he took ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... unnecessary, a huge propeller having four tremendously broad sickle-shaped blades, the palms of which were so cunningly shaped and hollowed as to gather in and concentrate the air—or water, as the case might be—about the boss and powerfully project it thence in a direct line with the longitudinal axis of the ship. To give this cigar-shaped curvilinear hull perfect stability when resting upon the ground, it was fitted with a pair of deep and broad bilge-keels, ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... been kiddin' myself that I was a perfectly good private sec. Also I had an idea the Corrugated Trust was one of the main piers that kept New York from slumpin' into the North River, and that the boss, Old Hickory Ellins, was sort of a human skyscraper who loomed up as imposin' in the financial foreground as the Metropolitan Tower does on the picture post-cards that ten-day trippers mail to the ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford

... mother—she's such a good mother, and has so few good things to eat—than they did for themselves. And it made them feel awful bad when she came home and cried 'cause some wicked thief had stolen her pocket-book with half a week's earnings in it, and the two-dollar bill that the boss had given her to buy a Christmas dinner with besides. And so the boy Neal—he's kind of a nice ...
— Harper's Young People, December 23, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... to the boss, my man," said this personage, coolly. "I understand you allow strangers to explore this old castle of your'n, and I've come quite a piece for that ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming

... ambassadors." Having clapped spurs to his horse, he advances against this single foe with spear presented; and after having struck and unhorsed him, he immediately, by help of his lance, sprung on the ground. And as the king attempted to rise, he throws him back again with the boss of his shield, and with repeated thrusts pins him to the earth. He then stripped off the spoils from the lifeless body; and having cut off his head and carrying it on the point of his spear, he puts the enemy to rout through terror on ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... whether each works under his own impulse or whether they co-operate; when they begin and how they finish; all these things are unknown to man. The investigation of such questions is almost impossible. It is generally believed, however, that beavers work in gangs under a common "boss" or "overseer," and it is a known fact that they work only at night. During a dark, rainy night they accomplish twice as much as on a moonlight night. No doubt the darkness gives them a sense of security which aids their work. Anyway, in the completed job, we see the evidences of ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon

... my temper when I'm in the middle of a white-hot, impassioned business appeal and the office boy bounces in to say to the boss: "Mrs. Jones is waiting. She says you were going to help her pick out wall paper this morning;" and Jones says, "Tell her I'll ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber

... country, which, if they'd been published, would have enabled me to pay my debts, and start new accounts from Maine to Georgia. But they've never been published—and why? It's jealousy. A child with half an eye can see that. Those boss poets who get the big salaries, probably see my verses, and pay the publishers a big price ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 29, October 15, 1870 • Various

... touch liquor shall never touch mine'," recited Stiles, rolling his eyes in exaggerated piety. "No, honest, I can't," he protested as the other pulled on his arm. "I'm on an important message for the boss an' I got to hustle ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse

... boss of that shop. She's O.K. and so's her paper, but her prices aren't high." He considered. "Better come to our shop. We run two monthlies and a weekly, one critical, one household, one entirely for children. ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... boss of the Sixth District, who is out mending his political fences, spellbound a handful of his henchmen at the School House near Blandford Crossing on ...
— Adventures In Friendship • David Grayson

... championship of Bute's government in The Briton. And finally, in part, obviously, as a consequence of all this nervous breakdown, a succession of severe catarrhs, premonitory in his case of consumption, the serious illness of the wife he adored, and the death of his darling, the "little Boss" of former years, now on the verge of womanhood. To a man of his extraordinarily strong affections such a series of ills was too overwhelming. He resolved to break up his establishment at Chelsea, and to seek a remedy ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... arch, as constructed, with sections, A B C, in combination with the foot block, I, provided with a flange or boss, K, when arranged in the manner as and for the ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various

... as lightly as you will! 155 The brands were flat, the brands were dying, Amid their own white ashes lying; But when the lady passed, there came A tongue of light, a fit of flame; And Christabel saw the lady's eye, 160 And nothing else saw she thereby, Save the boss of the shield of Sir Leoline tall, Which hung in a murky old niche in the wall. "O softly tread," said Christabel, "My ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... (having conferred, as we could see out of the wing of our eye) with his boss. "What was ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley

... you, Dick Prescott! You, the leader of Dick & Co., a gang that tries to boss everything ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock

... the way he said it, don't you know. He didn't like the suit. I pulled myself together to assert myself. Something seemed to tell me that, unless I was jolly careful and nipped this lad in the bud, he would be starting to boss me. He had the aspect of a distinctly ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... over in this one to Tampico in the early evening, and just about ten minutes ago I spots it landin' with a sousy bunch of Federals at the East Coast, and swipes it back according. Where's the boss? He ain't hurt, is he? ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London

... Some establishments merely offer bonus and insurance schemes, emphasize safety, and take steps that lead to the cultivation of cordial group relationship between labor and the management as a substitute for the old cordial individual relationship between the laborer and the boss. Others go beyond this. They see to it that absentee employees are visited, and when the latter are ill they have them provided with medical treatment and free nursing. They also supply their workers with better housing, lectures, clubrooms, playgrounds and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various

... aren't doing it for money. We get money and supplies from groups of women in all the different churches. The owner of the bog helps, too. But we'll have to hurry, or your row boss will be tooting his whistle." Her eyes were admiring children and shack as she talked. Though not like Grandma's lost house, this camp ...
— Across the Fruited Plain • Florence Crannell Means

... "you can't go into the Chamber of Horrors just yet. But you won't have to wait more than four or five minutes, Mrs. Bunting. It's this way, you see; our boss is in there, showing a party round." He lowered his voice. "It's Sir John Burney—I suppose you know ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... descriptions of every town, mountain, plain, or river. I wish my bitterest foe no worse fate than the reading of them. Frigid? Caspian snows, Celtic ice, are warm in comparison. A whole book hardly suffices him for the Emperor's shield—the Gorgon on its boss, with eyes of blue and white and black, rainbow girdle, and snakes twined and knotted. Why, Vologesus's breeches or his bridle, God bless me, they take up several thousand lines apiece; the same for the look of Osroes's hair as he swims the Tigris—or what the cave was like that ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata

... replied: "No, that's the railroad boss over there with the gang handling the derrick; this is Tisdale, Hollis Tisdale of Alaska and Washington, D.C. You ought to have heard of him in your line of business if you never ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson

... Jim, and boss matters. I'll go," spoke his brother Rezin. Rezin Bowie was like him in manner, but ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin

... backed, eying Billy malevolently. "I never done nothing," he defended sullenly. "The boss'll have something to say about this—and I'll kill you first chance I ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower

... darkey, "Wait er minnit tell I strack a light—come in hyar, boy." Shawn went in as Brad threw a chunk of wood on the fire. "Set down thar, boy, and lemme put dis coffee-pot on de coals an' brile yo' a piece uv bacon. Lawse, chile! some say yo' done drown, an' some say yo' rin away wid race-boss men, en yo' mammy jes' 'stracted an' axin' me ef I heerd frum yo' ev'ry day. Is yo' ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis

... used to go when the bishop had not room at the palace for them, and that it would be found there was an "Agnus Dei" in the ceiling of one of the lower rooms. The consequence was, search was made for it: and what seemed a plain boss, where two beams crossed each other, on being cleansed and scraped, turned out to be as the book said, and which I saw only last week. The clergyman has the pamphlet above alluded to. Whether this, and the abbot's house, belonged to the palace I cannot ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 64, January 18, 1851 • Various

... ole boss I 'd look out fer a man, an' ef you reckon you kin fill de 'quirements er de situation, I 'll take yo' roun' dere ter-morrer mornin'. You wants ter put on yo' bes' clothes an' slick up, fer dey 're partic'lar people. Ef you git de ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... to-night; days in England, and afterward those when we worked on the branch road beneath the range. There's not a boy among the crowd in the sleeping-shack I can't recall—first, wild Larry, who taught me how to drill and hid my rawness from the Construction Boss." ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss



Words linked to "Boss" :   straw boss, guvnor, colloquialism, knob, leader, nailhead, trail boss, emboss, pol, chief, party boss, political leader, boss around, ganger, projection, drug lord, knobble, assistant foreman, honcho, baas, politician, old man, bossy, stamp, block, superior, boss-eyed, impress, politico, political boss, gaffer, employer, hirer, drug baron, foreman



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